
Book ' JdA— 

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1 



THE MOTHER AND THE FATHER 




[bee page 23 
THERE. NOW, 1 DO NOT FEEL SO MUCH AFRAID' 



THE MOTHER 
AND THE FATHER 



DRAMATIC PASSAGES 



BY 



W. D. HOWELLS 



ILLUSTRATED 




HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

1909 



X 



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WILLIAM DEAN HOWELLS 

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Published May, 1909 



LIBRARY of CONGRESS 



Two CoDies Received 

MAY 20 1903 

CLASS jjk XXt No. 

2- 3 2^/5- 



» N 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



'there, now, I DO NOT FEEL SO MUCH AFRAID " . . Frontispiece 
'l SEEM ALL ROLLED AND LAPPED IN ENDLESS PEACE " . Facing p. 4 
'she MUST TAKE HER CHANCE, AS I TOOK MINE" , . " 32^ 

'it was like SOMETHING HEARD WITHIN MY BRAIN " . " 46 ^' 



THE MOTHER 



I 

THE MOTHER 

In the upper chamber of a village house a young mother 
lying in bed with her new-bom baby on her arm. A 
nurse moving silently about the room, and putting 
the last touches of order to its disorder, opens the door 
softly, and goes out. The Mother looks up at 
The Father, who stands looking down on her. 

The Mother: 

"Is the nurse gone now? And are we alone 
At last?'' 

The Father: 

"Yes, dearest, she is gone: and I 
Must leave you, too. You must be quiet, now." 

The Mother: 
"Yes, now I will be quiet." After a moment: "Dear!" 

The Father, turning at the door: 

"Yes, dear?" 



THE MOTHER AND THE FATHER 

The Mother: 

"See her, how cunningly she nestles down, 
As naturally as if she had been used 
To doing it for years. How old she looks ! How wise!" 
The Mother rubs her cheek softly against the baby's 

head, and then draws back her face to look at it. 

The Father comes and stands beside the bed, 
• looking down on the child. 

"How much do you suppose she really knows?" 

The Father: 
"If she has newly come from heaven, our home, 
As Wordsworth says, then she knows everything 
We have forgotten, but shall know again, 
When we go back to heaven with her." 

The Mother: 

"Yes." 
She rubs her cheek on the baby's head again. 
"Do you believe it?" 

The Father: 

"Why, of course I do. 
Why, what a—" 

The Mother: 

"Nothing. Only, I was thinking 
That earth was good enough for me, and wishing 
That we might all go on forever here." 

4 



THE MOTHER 

The Father, laughing, and then anxiously: 

"Well, I should not object. But now, my dear, 

If you keep on this talking, I am afraid 

You will excite yourself. The doctor said — " 

The Mother: 

"Why, I was never calmer in my life! 

I seem all rolled and lapped in endless peace. 

I feel as if there never could be pain, 

Or trouble, or weakness, in the world again. 

I am as strong! But, yes, I understand. 

And, to please you, I will be quiet now." 

She dghs restfully. The Father stoops and kisses 
her and then the child. 
"I wish that you could somehow make one kiss 
Do for us both!'' 

The Father: 

"Well, I should like to try, 
Sometime, but now — " 

The Mother: 

"Yes, now I must be quiet. 
Go!" He turns toward the door. "Dear!" He turns 
again. 

The Father: 
"Yes, dearest!" 

5 



THE MOTHEE AND THE FATHER 

The Mother: 

''But I shall not sleep." 

The Father, anxiously: 
"You ought to sleep. The doctor said — '' 

The Mother, impatiently: 

''The doctor! 
I'd like to know what does the doctor know! 
Does he expect ITl let him take from me 
A moment of this bliss and give it up 
To stupid sleep? Why, I want every instant, 
To share it all with you, and keep it ours! 
If I found I was drowsing, I should scream 
And wake myself." 

The Father: 
"Yes, dearest love, I know! 
I understand just how you feel. I feel 
Just so myself. But now, to keep it ours. 
You must do nothing that will make you sick — " 

The Mother: 

"And die? Oh yes! But what if I should die? 
I have had my baby! What if I should die?" 

The Father, wringing his hands: 
"Dearest, how can you?" 



THE MOTHER 

The Mother: 

"Sometimes I thought I must. 
But then I set my teeth, and would not die! 
Nothing could make me die till I had seen her. 
But now that I have seen her, I could die. 
How do I know but life might take from love 
Something that death would leave it!" 

The Father, ruefully: 

"But you said, 
Only a moment since, that you were wishing 
That we might all go on forever here.'' 

The Mother: 

"Yes, there is that view of it. Do not be 
Afraid! I shall not die. There, go away, 
And I will try to sleep. Or no, sit down, 
Here by the bed. I will not speak a word. 
But it will be more quieting with you 
Beside us, than if you were there, outside. 
Where neither one of us could see you. She 
Wants you as much as I." 

The Father, doubtfully, drawing up a chair and then 
sinking into it: 

"What an idea!" 

The Mother: 

"Can't you believe, that through each one of us 
She sees and wishes for the other one? 
Of course she does!" 

7 



THE MOTHEK AND THE FATHER 

The Father: 
'Terhaps." 

The Mother: 

''There's no perhaps. 
SheTl live her hfe outside of oui-s too soon; 
And that is why I cannot bear to lose 
An instant while she lives it still in ours. 
I hate the thought of sleeping. I should like 
To keep awake till she can talk and walk; 
Then I could sleep forever.'* 

She suddenly puts out the hand of the arm under 
the baby's head and clutches the father's hand. 
"Where did she 
Come from? I do not mean her body or its breath. 
That came from us. But oh, her soul, her soul! 
Where did that come from?" 

The Father is silent, and she pulls convulsively 
at his hand. 

"Can't you answer me?" 

The Father, in distress: 

"How can I tell you such a thing as that? 
You know as well as I. Somewhere in space, 
Somewhere in God, she was that which might be, 
Amidst the unspeakable infinitude 
Of those that dwell there in the mystery, 
From everlasting unto everlasting." 

8 



THE MOTHER 

The Mother, without releasing her hold: 

"Well?" 

The Father, luith a groan: 

"And then our love had somehow power upon her. 
And blindly chose her, that she might become 
A living soul, and know, feel, think like us. 
It chose her, what she shall be to the end, 
Or rather she was somehow chosen for it." 

The Mother, still clutching his hand: 

"Out of that infinite beatitude. 

Where there is nothing of the consciousness 

That we call this and that, here, in the world? 

That ignorantly suffers and that dies, 

After the life-long fear of death, and goes 

Helplessly into that unconsciousness 

Again?" 

The Father : 

"She is under the same law as we. 
But what the law is, or why it should be, 
She knows no less or more than we ourselves. 
Why do you make me say such things to you?" 

The Mother, dreamily: 

"You say our love compelled her to come here. 
But, where our baby was, she was so safe! 



THE MOTHER AND THE FATHER 

And if there was no care for her in space, 
Or any love, as here sometimes there seems 
No care or love for us, where we are left 
So to ourselves, our baby never knew it." 

The Father, in anguish: 
"You want to break my heart." 

The Mother: 

"My own is broken." 

The Father: 

"And are you sorry she has come to us? 
You are not glad to have our baby here? 
You would rather it had been some other life 
Summoned to fill up other lives than ours? 
You do not care, then, for our little one?" 

The Mother, solemnly: 

"So much that you cannot imagine it. 

I was her life; and now she is my life. 

My very life, so that if hers went out 

Mine would go out with it in the same breath! 

That's how I care." 

The Father, beseechingly: 

"Oh, try for her sake, then. 
If not for yoiu« or mine, to keep from thinking 
These dreadful thoughts!" 

10 



THE MOTHEK 

The Mother: 

*'It is not I who think. 
It thinks itself. Perhaps the baby thinks it." 

The Father: 
"I don't know what to say to you, my dear! 
You are right to think; but if some other time — " 

The Mother: 

''When other children come? No, no! Now! now! 
Another time would be no miracle, 
And I must try to find the meaning out, 
While this is still a miracle to me. 
As much as morning or the springtime is. 
You, if you wish, can drug your thoughts, and sleep; 
But my thoughts are so precious that if I 
Should lose the least of them — What time is it?" 
She follovjs him keenly, as he takes out his watch. 

The Father, mth a sigh: 
"Daylight, almost. Hark! You can hear the cocks." 

The Mother, smiling: 
''How sweet it is to hear them crowing so! 
It is our own dear earth that seems to speak 
In the familiar sound. If it were summer, 
The birds would be beginning to sing, now. 
I'm glad it is not summer. Is it snowing 
As hard as ever? Look!" 

11 



THE MOTHEE AND THE FATHER 

The Father, going to the window and 'peering out: 

*'No, it is clear, 
And the full moon is shining." 

The Mother, lifting her head a little: 

"Let me see!" 
With a long sigh, as he draws the curtain. 
"Yes, it is the moon. The same old moon 
We used to walk beneath when we were lovers. 
Do you suppose that it was really we?" 

She lets her head drop. 

The Father: 
"If this is we." 

The Mother: 

"It seems a year, almost, 
Since yesterday — for now this is to-morrow. 
Does the time seem as long to you, I wonder?" 

The Father, earning back to her: 
"Longer. I had to see you suffer and not help you." 

The Mother, taking his hand again: 
"I did not mind it; I was glad to suffer. 
You must not mind it either." 

After a moment: 
"If she could live 
Forever on the earth, and we live with her, 
I should not mind our having brought her here. 

12 



THE MOTHER 

The life of earth, it seems so beautiful, 

Far more than anything imaginable 

Of any life elsewhere. They cannot hear 

Anything like the crowing of the cocks 

In heaven — so drowsy and so drowsing! Hark, 

How thin and low and faint it is! Oh, sweet, 

Sweeter than voices of antiphonal angels. 

Answering one another in the skies, 

They keep on calling in the dim, warm barns, 

With the kind cattle underneath their roosts, 

Munching the hay, and sighing, rich and soft. 

I used to hear it when I was a child. 

And the milk hoarsely drumming in the pails. 

I hope that she will live to love these things, 

Dear simple things of our dear simple earth. 

Do not you, dearest?" 

The Father: 

"Yes, indeed I do. 
And now if only you could get some sleep — " 

The Mother: 
"Well, I will try. I will be quiet now. 
How quietly she sleeps! She wants to set 
A good example to her wicked mother. 
Mother! Just think of it!" 

The Father: 

"And father! Think 
Of that!" 

13 



THE MOTHEK AND THE FATHEE 

The Mother: 
*'Yes, I have thought of that too, dear. 
Put your lips down and kiss her httle head." 

As The Father bends over her: 
''There, now, with your face between hers and mine. 
You can be kissing both." 

As he lifts himself : 
"I was just thinking. 
What if, instead of our bhnd, ignorant love. 
Choosing her out of the infinitude 
Of those unconsciousnesses, as we call them — 
She, in the wisdom she had right from God, 
Had chosen us, in spite of knowing us 
Better than we can ever know ourselves, 
In all o\xr wickedness and foolishness, 
To be her father and her mother here, 
Because she understood the good that she 
Could do us, and be safe from harm of us: 
Would you like that?" 

The Father: 

"Far better than to think 
She came because we ignorantly willed." 

The Mother: 
''Well, now, perhaps, that is the way it was. 
Only—" 

The Father 

"What, dearest?" 
14 



THE MOTHER 

The Mother: 

''Oh, I do not know 
If I can make you understand. Men cannot. 
But if she came from Him, and if He knew 
That was her errand, why did He make no sign, 
Or send some of His angels down to say?" 

The Father: 
"Perhaps she was herself His angel." 

The Mother: 

"Now, 
You have said it! I hoped you would say that. 
It always seemed so commonplace, before, 
But now, the rarest, the most precious truth. 
It was not only wishing first to see her. 
And wilhng not to die tiU I had seen her. 
That helped me live through all that agony. 
But in the very midst and worst of it 
There was a kind of — I can never express it! — 
Waiting and expectation of a message! 
"VMiat will the message be?" 

The Father: 

"Something, perhaps, 
That never can be put in words, on earth. 
But that we still shall feel the meaning of. 
And at the last shall come to understand 
As we have always felt it." 

15 



THE MOTHER AND THE FATHER 

The Mother, after a moment: 

"There was something 
I wish that I could tell you — through it all, 
Confusion, or transfusion, I do not know, 
As if the child was I, and I was it, 
And I myself was being born — You'll think 
That I am crazy!" 

The Father: 
"No, indeed! Go on!" 

The Mother: 

"Oh, there is nothing more. I felt as if 
It was I coming into another world, 
Where I had never been before. And this, 
This is the other world!" 

The Father: 

"I do not understand." 

The Mother, sadly: 

"I was afraid of that. And I shall hurt you 
If I explain." 

The Father: 

"No, no! You will not hurt me. 
Or, if you do, it will be for my good." 

The Mother, after a moment: 
"An hour ago, one little hour ago. 
If it has been even an hour ago, 

16 



THE MOTHER 

You were the whole of love, and now you are 

The least and last of it, and lost in it. 

It is as if you went out of that world. 

With that old self of mine, when this new self 

Came with our baby here. There, now, I knew it! 

I knew that I should hurt you, darling!" 

The Father: 

"No. 
I am not hurt, and I can understand. 
I would not have it different. I should hate 
Myself if I could make you care for me 
In that old way. It did seem beautiful, 
And pure, and holy, and it seemed unselfish. 
But this— this!" 

He bends over the mother and child, and gathers 
them both into his arms. 

The Mother, putting her hand on his head, and gently 
smoothing it: 

"There, you'll wake the baby, dearest. 
How strange is seems, my saying that already! 
But now I am so sleepy, and the doctor 
Said that I ought to sleep. You will not mind 
If baby and I drive you out of the room? 
I must be quiet now. You are not wounded?" 

She stretches her hand toward him as he rises and 
turns toward the door. 
17 



THE MOTHEE AND THE FATHER 

The Father, catching her hand to his mouth: 

"No, no. I am glad you are. sleepy. Sleep is the best 

thing. 
The doctor said so—" 

The Mother, drowsily: 

"Then I will go to sleep. 
Father, good-night!" 

The Father, joyously: 

"No, no; good-morning, mother!" 



II 

THE FATHER AND THE MOTHER 



II 

THE FATHER AND THE MOTHER 

The best room of a milage house, after the bride and groom 
have gone, and the wedding guests have left the father 
and the mother of the bride alone. They are a pair 
in later middle life, with hair beginning to be gray. 
The Father stands at the window staring out. The 
Mother goes restively about noting this thing and 
that. 

The Mother: 

"I thought we never should be rid of them! 

The laughing, and the screaming, and the chatter, 

I thought, would drive me wild. Now they are gone, 

And I can breathe a little while before 

I begin putting things in place again. 

But what confusion! I should think a whirlwind 

Had swept the whole house through, up stairs and down. 

It seemed as if those people had no mercy. 

And she, before that wall of roses there, 

Standing through all so patient and so gentle, 

And smiling so on every one that came 

21 



THE MOTHER AND THE FATHER 

To shake hands with her, or to kiss her — white 
As the white dress she wore! Ah, no one knew, 
As I knew, what it cost her to keep up. 
I knew her heart was aching for the home 
That she was leaving, so that when it came 
To the good-bye, I almost felt it break 
Against my own. Dearest, you do believe 
He will be good to her? You do believe — 
What are you looking at out of the window?'' 

The Father, without turning: 

"At the old sHppers they threw after her. 
The rice lies in the road as thick as snow." 

The Mother: 

"Those silly customs, how I hate them all! 
But if they help to keep our thoughts away — 
You do see something else!" 

The Father: 

"No, nothing else. 
I was just wondering if I might not hear 
The whistle of their train." 

The Mother: 

"And you have heard it?" 

The Father: 

"Not yet." 

22 



THE FATHER AND THE MOTHER 

The Mother 
"Then come and sit down here by me, 
And tell me how it was when we were married." 

He comes slowly from the window and stands he- 
fore her. 
"Do you suppose I looked as pale as she did? 
I know I did not! I was sure of you 
For life and death. Why do you not sit down?" 

He sinks absently beside her on the sofa. She pulls 
his arm round her waist. 
'^ There, now, I do not feel so much afraid!" 

The Father: 
"Afraid of what?" 

The Mother: 

"How can I tell you what? 
Afraid for her of all that I was then 
So radiantly glad of for myself. 
Do you believe we really were so happy? 
I was one craze of hope and trust in you, 
But was that happiness? Do you believe 
He will be good to her as you have been 
To me?" 

The Father: 

"Oh yes." 

The Mother: 

"Why do you answer so. 
Sighing like that?" 

23 



THE MOTHER AND THE EATHEK 

The Father: 

*' Because men are not good, 
As women are." 

The Mother: 

''Yes, I kept thinking that 
Through the whole service, when the promises 
He made seemed broken in the very making. 
How little we know about him! A few months 
Since she first saw him, and we give her to him 
As trustfully as if we had known him always." 

The Father: 

"And we ourselves, we had not known each other 
Longer than they when we were married." 

The Mother: 

"Oh, 
But that was different!" 

The Father: 

"No, it was the same 
And it was like most of the marriages 
That have been and that shall be to the end. 
They liked the charm of strangeness in each other." 

The Mother: 
"But men and women are quite strange enough, 
Merely as men and women, to each other, 

24 



THE FATHER AND THE MOTHER 

When they have lived their whole lives long together. 

And we ourselves, we took too many chances. 

I did not think you ever would be harsh, 

And when you spoke the first harsh word to me — 

I believe, if he is ever unkind to her. 

That I shall know it, wherever it may be. 

She will come to me somehow in her grief, 

And let me comfort her poor ghost with mine, 

For it would kill us both. Do you suppose — 

Do you believe he ever will be harsh 

With her?" 

The Father: 

*'l almost think you ask me that 
Just to torment me." 

The Mother: 

'^ There, that is so like you! 
You cannot talk of her as if she were 
A woman after all. But, I can tell you. 
She in her turn can bear all I have borne; 
And though she seems so frail and sensitive, 
She is not one to break at a mere touch. 
But men are that way, I have noticed it; 
They think their wives can endure everything, 
Their daughters nothing. You are not listening!" 

The Father: 
"Yes, I am listening. What is it you mean?" 

25 



THE MOTHER AND THE FATHER 

The Mother: 

"You are tenderer of your children than your wives 
Because you love what is yourselves in them, 
And you must love somebody else in us. 
Cannot you give me a moment's sympathy 
Now when I have nobody left but you? 
What are your thinking of, I'd like to know?" 

The Father, going hack to the ivindow, and kneeling on 
the ivindow-seat, with his forehead against the pane: 

"The night when she was born." 

The Mother: 

"I knew it! I 
Was thinking of it too, and how it seemed 
As if she had somehow chosen us to be 
Her father and her mother." 

The Father: 

"^\^ly not him, 
Then, for her husband, by a mystery 
As sacred?" 

The Mother: 

"Oh, why do you ask? Because 
There is no other world, now, as there was 
Then, where the mystery could shape itself — 

26 



THE FATHEK AND THE MOTHEK 

No hitherto, as there is no hereafter. 
We have destroyed it for ourselves and her, 
And love for all of us is as much a thing 
Of earth as death itself." 

The Father: 

"I never said 
That world did not exist." 

The Mother: 

"Oh no; you only 
Said that you did not know, and I have only 
Bettered your ignorance a little and said 
I knew. Women must have some faith or other 
Even if they make a faith of disbelief; 
They cannot halt half-way in yes and no; 
And she is more like me than you in that. 
Though she is like you in so many things. 
That shattered fantasy — or, what you please — 
Cannot be mended now and used again; 
And howsoever she has chosen him — 
Or, if you like, he has been chosen for her — 
The choice is made between his love and ours. 
The home she seemed to bring, then, when she came. 
Now she is gone, it lies here in the dust. 
Oh, I can pick the house up, after while. 
But never pick the home up, while I live! 
Well, let it be! I suppose you will call it 
Nature, and preach that cold philosophy 

27 



THE MOTHEK AND THE FATHER 

Of yours: that every home is founded on 

The ruin of some other home and shall be 

The ruin out of which still other homes 

Shall grow in turn, and so on to the end. 

I find no comfort in it, and my heart 

Aches for the child that is not less my child 

Because she is her husband's wife. Oh yes, 

If we were two fond optimistic fools, 

I dare say we should sit here in this horror. 

And hold each other's hands and smile to think 

Of what a brilliant wedding it had been; 

How everybody said how well she looked, 

And how he was so handsome and so manly; 

And try to follow them in imagination 

To their new house, and settle them in it; 

And say how soon we should be hearing from her, 

And then how soon they would come back to us 

Next summer. But we have not been that kind. 

We have always said the things we really thought. 

And not shrunk from the facts; and now I face them. 

And say this wedding — Hark ! Was that their train ?" 

The Father: 

"It is the freight mounting the grade. Their train 
Is overdue, but it will soon be there." 

The Mother: 

*'If it would never come or never go! 
If all the worlds that whir around the sun 

28 



THE FATHER AND THE MOTHER 

Could stop, and none of them go on again! 
Once I had courage for us both, and now 
You ought to have it. Oh, say something, do, 
To help me bear it!" 

The Father: 
"What is it I should say?" 

The Mother: 
''That it has been all my own doing! Say 
That I would have it, and am like the mothers, 
The stupid mothers, still uncivilized, 
That wish their daughters married for the sake 
Of being married: that would help me bear it. 
If you blamed me then I could blame you too, 
And say you wished it quite as much as I." 

The Father: 
"We neither of us wished it, and I think 
We have always blamed each other needlessly." 

The Mother: 
"Yes, and I cannot bear it as I used 
When she was with us. Now that she is gone 
And you are all in all to me again, 
Dearest, you must be very good to me. 
Did you hear something?" 

The Father, going to the ivindow: 

"Yes, I thought I heard 
The coming of their train; but it was nothing." 

29 



THE MOTHEE AND THE FATHEK 

The Mother, unheedingly: 

"The worst of all was having to part so — 

Hurried and fluttered — up there in her room, 

Where she had been so long our little child, 

And with that hubbub going on down here, 

Not realize that we were parting. Oh, 

If we could only have had a little time 

And quiet for it! Hark! What noise was tliat?" 

The Father: 
"What noise?" 

The Mother: 

"Something that sounded hke a voice! 
Her voice! I know it must have been her voice!" 

She rushes to the tcindow and stares out. 
"I always knew within my heart that she 
Would call for me, if any unhappiness 
Greater than she could bear should come to her." 

The Father: 
"But what unhappiness — " 

The Mother: 

"A tone, a look!" 

The Father: 

"With our arms round her yet? He could not. That 
Would be against nature." 

30 



THE FATHEE AND THE MOTHER 

The Mother: 

"Nature! How you men 
Are always talking about Nature! Little 
You understand her! Nature flatters men. 
She gives men mastery and health and life, 
And women subjection, weakness, pain, and death. 
We know what Nature is, and you know nothing. 
She takes our youth and wastes it upon you. 
She steals our beauty for you, and she uses 
Our love itself to enslave us to you. Nature!" 

The Father: 
''Has it been really so wdth you and me?" 

The Mother: 
''How do I know? You may have been unlike 
Other men.'' 

The Father: 

"No, but quite hke ooher men; 
Not better. Shall she take her chance with him? 
Speak out now from the worst you know of me, 
And say if you would have her back again.'' 

The Mother: 
"It keeps on calling! Can it be her voice?" 

The Father: 

"Then say it is her voice. ^YhB.t will you answer? 
Shall she come home and be our child again?" 

31 



THE MOTHEK AND THE FATHER 

The Mother: 

"You put it all on me!" 

The Father: 

"Then if I take 
The burden all upon myself, and choose — " 

The Mother: 
"What?" 

The Father: 

"That her longing for us should have power 
To bring her back?" 

The Mother: 

"To say good-bye again?" 

The Father: 

"To stay and never say good-bye again, 
To leave her husband and to cleave to us." 

The Mother: 

"I cannot let you choose! For oh! it seems 
That it would really happen if you chose. 
Wait, wait a minute, w^hile I try to think 
How would it be if she came back again. 
And crept once more into this empty shell 
Of life that has been lived! T\Tiat is there here 
But tw^o old hearts that hardly have enough 

32 




SHE MUST TAKE HER CHANCE, AS 1 TOOK MINE 



THE FATHER AND THE MOTHER 

Of love left for each other? And she needs 
The whole of such love as I found in you 
When I had given you all the love I had. 
No, she must go with him as I with you. 
Because she has been all in all to us 
So long, and yet for such a little time, 
We have come to think that she must be unlike 
Others, and she must be above their fate. 
But that is foolish. She must take her chance, 
As I took mine, and as we women have 
Taken our chance from the beginning. There! 
I give her up for the first time and last! 
Tell her — I talk as if you were with her 
There, and not here with me!'' 

The Father: 

*^\nd I— I feel 
As if we both were there with her and with 
Each other here." 

The Mother: 

"And so we shall be always; 
And most with her when most we are alone. 
See, they have mounted to their train together! 
She stands a moment at the door and waves 
The hand that is not held in his toward us — 
And they are gone into their unknown world 
To find our own past in their future there! 

33 



Ill 

THE FATHER 



Ill 

THE FATHER 

In the parlor of a village house, with open doors and win- 
dows. The Father and The Mother, an elderly 
man and woman, sitting alone among chairs in 
broken rows. There is a piano ivith lifted lid; dust 
is tracked about the floor. 



"Now it is over/^ 



The Father: 



The Mother: 



"It is over, now, 
And we shall never see her any more." 

The Father: 

"Have you put everything of hers away? 
If I found anything that she had worn, 
Or that belonged to her, I think the sight 
Would kill me." 

The Mother: 

"Oh, you need not be afraid; 
I have put everything away." 

37 



THE MOTHER AND THE FATHER 

The Father: 

''Oh, me! 
How shall we do without her! It is as if 
One of my arms had been lopt off, and I 
Must go through life a mutilated man. 
This morning when I woke there was an instant, 
A little instant, when she seemed alive, 
Before the clouds closed over me again. 
And death filled all the world. Then came that stress, 
That horrible impatience to be done 
With what had been our child. As if to hide 
The cold white witness of her absence wxre 
To have her back once more!" 

The Mother: 

"I felt that, too. 
I thought I could not rest till it was done; 
And now I cannot rest, and we shall rest 
Never again as long as we shall live. 
Our grief will drug us, yes, and we shall sleep, 
As we have slept already; but not rest." 

The Father: 

"We must, I cannot help believing it. 

See her again some time and somewhere else." 

The Mother: 
"Oh, never any time or anywhere!" 

3S 



THE FATHER 

The Father: 
"You used to think we should." 

The Mother: 

''I know I did. 
But that is gone forever, that fond he 
With which we used to fool our happiness, 
When we had no need of it. When we had 
Each other safe we could not even imagine 
Not having one another always." 

The Father: 

"Yes, 
It was a lie, a cruel, mocking lie!" 

The Mother: 
"Why did you ask me, then? Do j^ou suppose 
That if the love we used to make believe 
Would reunite us, really had the power, 
It would not, here and now, be doing it, 
Now, when we need her more than we shall need her 
Ever in all eternity, and she — 
If she is still alive, which I deny — 
Is aching for us both as we for her? 
You know how lost and heartsick she must be, 
Wherever she is, if she is anywhere; 
And if her longing, and if ours could bring us 
Together, as we used to dream it could, 
How soon she would be here!" 

39 



THE MOTHER AND THE FATHER 

The Father: 

"I cannot bear it!" 

The Mother: 
"I shall not care, when we are very old, 
Years hence, and we shall have begun to be 
Forgetful, as old people are, about her, 
And all her looks and ways — I shall not care 
To see her then: I want to see her now. 
Now while I still remember eveiything, 
And she remembers, and has all her faults 
Just as we have our own, to be forgiven. 
But if we have to wait till she is grown 
Some frigid, faultless angel, in some world 
Where she has other ties, I shall not care 
To see her; I should be afraid of her." 

The Father: 
"She would not then be she, nor we be we." 

The Mother: 

"I want to tell her how I grieve for all 

I ever did or said that was unkind 

Since she was bom. But if we met above, 

In that impossible heaven, she would not care." 

The Father: 
"If she knows an5rthing she knows that now 
Without your telling." 

40 



THE i^ATHER 

The Mother: 

"I want her to say 
She knows it." 

The Father: 

"Yet, somehow she seems aUve! 
The whole way home she seemed to be returning 
Between us as she used, when we came home 
From walking, and she was a child." 

The Mother: 

"Oh that 
Was nothing but the habit of her; just 
As if you really had lost an arm 
You would have felt it there." 

The Father: 

"Oh yes, I know." 
He lets his head hang in silence; then he looks up 
at the window opening on the porch. 
"This honeysuckle's sweetness sickens me." 

He rises and shuts the window. 
"I never shall smell that sweetness while I live 
And not die back into this day of death." 

He remains at the window staring out. 
"How still it is outside! The timothy 
Stands Uke a solid wall beside the swath 
The men have cut. The clover heads hang heavy 
And motionless." 

.41 



THE MOTHER AND THE FATHER 

The Mother: 

"I wish that it would rain, 
And lay the dust. The house is full of dust 
From the road yonder. They have tracked it in 
Through all the rooms, and I shall have enough 
To do, getting it out again." 

The Father: 

"The sun 
Pours down its heat as if it were raining fire. 
But she that used to suffer so with cold, 
She cannot feel it. Did you see that woman, 
That horrible old woman, chewing dill 
All through the services?" 

The Mother: 

''Oh, yes, I saw her. 
You know her: Mrs. Joyce, that always comes 
To funerals." 

The Father: 
"I remember. She should be 
Prevented, somehow." 

The Mother: 

''Why, she did no harm." 

The Father: 

"I could not bear to have them stand and stare 
So long at the dead face. I hate that custom." 

42 



THE FATHEK 

The Mother: 

"I wonder that you cared. It was not her face, 

Nor the form hers; only a waxen image 

Of what she had been. Nothing now is she! 

There is no place in the whole universe 

For her whose going takes all from the earth 

That ever made it home." 

The Father: 

"Yes, she is gone, 
And it is worse than if she had never been — 
Hark!" 

The Mother: 

"How you startle me! You are so nervous!" 

The Father: 
"I thought I heard a kind of shuddering noise!" 

The Mother: 
"It was a shutter shaking in the wind." 

The Father: 
"There is no wind." 

The Mother, after a moment: 

"Go and see what it was. 
It seemed Hke something in the room where she — " 

43 



THE MOTHEE AND THE FATHEE 

The Father: 

"It sounded like the beating of birds' wings. 
There! It has stopped." 

The Mother: 

"I must know what it was. 
If you will not go, I will. I shall die 
Unless you go at once." 

The Father: 

"Oh, I wm go." 
He goes out and mounts the stairs, ivhich creak 
under his tread. His feet are heard on the floor 
above. After a moment comes the sound of 
opening and closing shutters. 

The Mother, calling up: 
"Wliat is it? Quick!" 

The Father, calling doum: 

"It was some kind of bird 
Between the shutters and the sash." 

He descends the stairs slowly, and comes into the 
room where The Mother sits waiting. 

"I cannot 
Imagine how it got there." 

The Mother: 

"What bird was it?" 
44 



THE FATHER 

The Father: 

''Some kind I did not know. I wish that I 
Had let it in." 

The Mother: 

"What do you mean by that? 
Everything Uving tries to leave the house; 
We stay because we are part of death, 
And cannot go." 

The Father: 

"It did not wish to go; 
It was not trjdng to get out, but in. 
I put it out once and it came again; 
And now I wish that I had let it stay." 

The Mother: 

"You are so superstitious; and you think" .... 

She stops, and they both sit silent for a time. 

The Father: 
"It may be our despair that keeps her from us." 

The Mother: 
"You think, then, that our hope could bring her to us?" 

The Father: 
"Not that, no." 

45 



THE MOTHER AND THE FATHER 

The Mother: 

"Or, that we could make her live 
Again by willing it sufficiently?" 

The Father: 

"Oh no, 
Not by our willing; by our loving, yes! 
Not through our will, which is a part of us 
And filled full of ourselves, but through our love, 
Which is a part of some life else, and filled 
With something not ourselves, but better, purer." 

The Mother: 
"Well, try." 

The Father: 

"I cannot. Your doubt palsies me." 

The Mother: 

"I cannot help it. If she cannot come 

Back to my doubt she cannot to my faith. . . . 

Oh! ^Vhat was that?" 

The Father: 

''The wind among the chords 
Of the piano. They have left it open 
After the singing." 

The Mother: 

"But there is no wind! 
You said yourself, just now, there was no wind!" 

46 




IT WAS LIKE SOMETHING HEARD WITHIN MY BRAIN 



THE FATHER 

The Father: 
''Perhaps it was our voices jarred the strings.'' 

The Mother: 

''They could not do it; and it was not like 

Anything that I ever heard before. 

It was like something heard within my brain. 

And there is something that I see within! 

Hark! Look! Do you hear nothing? Do you see 

Nothing? Or am I going wild?" 

The Father: 

"No, no! 
I hear and see it too. Are you afraid?" 

The Mother: 

"No, not the least. But, oh, how strange it is! 
What is it like — to 5'^ou?" 

The Father: 

"I dare not say 
For fear that it should not be anything." 

The Mother: 

"Do you believe that we are dreaming it? 
That we are sleeping and are dreaming it?" 

The Father: 

'^He could not be so cruel!" 

47 



THE MOTHEK AND THE FATHEK 

The Mother: 

"He made death.'' 

The Father: 

"There! You have hurt it, and it wiir not speak; 
You have offended it. Speak to it!" 

The Mother: 

"Child, 
I did not mean to grieve you. Oh, forgive 
Your poor wild mother! Is she here yet, dearest?" 

• The Father: 
"Yes, she is here! Yes, I am sure of it — " 

The Mother: 
"I seemed to have lost her — No, she is here again! 
How natural she is! How strong and bright. 
And all that sick look gone! It must be true 
That it is she, but how shall we be sure 
After it passes? Where is it you see her? 
Where is it that you hear her speak?" 

The Father: 

"Within! 
Within my brain, my heart, my life, my love!" 

The Mother: 
"Yes, that is where I see and hear her too. 
And oh, I feel her! This is her dear hand 

48 



THE FATHER 

In mine! How wami and soft it is once more, 
After that sickness! Yes, we have her back, 
Dearest, we have our child again! But still 
How strange it is that she is all within, 
And nowhere outside of our minds. Can you 
Make her nowhere but in yourself ?'' 

The Father 

"In you— ^' 

The Mother: 
"And I in you! I see her in your mind; 
I hear her speaking in your mind! That shows 
How wholly we are one. Our love has done it. 
And we must never quarrel any more. 
It was your faith; I will say that for you! 
But are you sure we are not dreaming it?" 

The Father: 
"How could we both be dreaming the same thing?" 

The Mother: 
"We could if we are both so wholly one." 

The Father: 

"We must not doubt, or it will cease to be. 
See! It is growing faint!" 

The Mother: 

"Oh no, my child! 
I Ho believe that it is really you. 

49 



THE MOTHEK AND THE FATHEE 

And, father, you must not keep saying It, 
As if she were not hving. Now she smiles, 
And now she is speaking! Can you understand 
What she is saying ?'* 

The Father: 

''It is not in words, 
And yet I understand." 

The Mother: 

"And so do I. 
I wish that you could put it into words 
So that we might remember it hereafter." 

The Father: 
"But what she says cannot be put in words. 
It is enough that we can understand 
Better than if it were in words." 

The Mother: 

"No, no! 
Unless it is in words, I am not sure. 
Unless she calls you Father and me Mother — 
Hush! Did you hear her speak?" 

The Father: 

"I thought I heard her." 

The Mother: 

"I am sure I heard her call us both, and now 
I know it is not an hallucination. 

50 



THE FATHER 

Oh, I believe, and I am satisfied! 

But, child, I wish that you could tell me something 

About it — where you are! Is it like this? 

In everything that I have read about it. 

It seemed so vague — " 

The Father: 

"She answers hesitating, 
As we used, when she was a little thing, 
To answer her in something that we thought 
She would be none the happier for knowing. 
We are as children with her now, and she 
As father and mother to us, and we must not 
Question her." 

The Mother: 
"Yes, I must; I will, I will!" 

The Father: 
"There, she is gone! No, she is here again!'' 

The Mother: 

"No, we are somewhere else. What place is this? 
Is this where she was? Did she bring us here? 
It seems as if we now were merged in her 
As she was merged in us before we came. 
But all our wills are one. Oh, mystery! 
I am so lost in this strange unity; 
Help me to find myself, if you are here! 
You are here, are not you?" 

51 



THE MOTHEE AND THE EATHEE 

The Father: 

"Yes, I am here, 
But not as I was there. I seem a part 
Of all that was and is and shall be. This is life 
And that was only living yonder! I can find you, 
I can find her, but not myseM in it. 
Or only as a drop of water may 
Find itself in the indiscriminate sea." 

The Mother: 
"I cannot bear it! I was not prepared! 
Oh, save me, dearest! Save me, oh, my child! 
Speak to me, father, in the words we knew, 
And not in these intolerable rays 
That leave the thought no refuge from itself. 
I have not yet the strength to yield my own 
Up to this universal happiness. 
I still must dwell apart in my own life, 
A prison if it need be, or a pang. 
Come back with me, both of you, for a while. . . . 

She starts, and stares about her. 
Why, I am here again, and you are here! 
This is our house, with dust in it, and death! 
This is our dear, dear earthly home! But where 
Is she? Call! Tell her we are here again!" 

The Father: 
''We could not make her come. I am bewildered; 
I scarcely know if I am here myself." 

A moment passes in silence. 

52 



THE FATHER 

The Mother: 

"Perhaps she never came at all, and we 
Have only dreamed that we were somewhere else. 
I feel as if I had awaked from sleep. 
How long were we away?" 

The Father: 

"I cannot tell: 
As long as life, or only for an instant.'' 

The Mother: 

"It could not have been long, for there I see 
The humming-bird poised at the honeysuckle 
Still, that I noticed when we seemed to go. 
Nothing has really happened; yet, somehow. . . . 
I wonder what it was she said to us 
That satisfied us so! Can you remember?" 

The Father: 

"Not in words, no. It did not seem in words, 
And if we tried to put it into words — '' 

The Mother: 

"They would be such as mediums use to cheat 
Their dupes with, or to make them cheat themselves. 
No, no! We ought not to be satisfied. 
It is a trick our crazy nerves have played us. 
The self-same trick has cheated both, or we 

53 



THE MOTHEK AND THE FATHER 

Have hypnotized each other. It is the same 

As such things ahvays have been from the first: 

Our sorrow has made fools of us; we have seen 

A phantom that our longing conjured up; 

And heard a voice that had no sound; and thought 

A meaning into mocking emptiness!" 

The Father: 
"Then, how could it have satisfied us so?'* 

The Mother: 

"That was a part of the hallucination. 

Nothing has happened, nothing has been proved!" 

The Father: 

"Not to our reason, no, but to our love 
Everything." 

The Mother: 
"Then, let her come back again!" 

The Father: 

"Twice would prove nothing more if once proved 

nothing. 
We have had our glimpse of something beyond earth: 
As every one who sorrows somehow has. 
The w^orld is not so hollow as it was. 
There still is meaning in the universe; 
But if it ever is as waste and senseless 

54 



THE FATHER 

As only now it seemed, and the time comes 
When we shall need her as we needed her, 
Then we shall be with her, or she with us, 
Whether the time is somewhere else or here. 
Come, mother — mother for eternity! — 
Come, let us go, each of us, to our work. 
I have been to blame for breaking you with grief 
Which I should have supported you against. 
Forgive me for it!" 

The Mother: 

"Oh, what are you saying? 
There is no blame and no forgiveness for it 
Between us two, nothing but only love." 

The Father: 
''The love in which she lives." 

The Mother: 

"I will believe it 



If you believe it." 



The Father: 

''Help me to believe!" 



THE END 



flfUy 20 W09 



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